An Equitable Trade
by Ross7
Summary: What is the value of a human life?  Is one life ever worth more than another?


"**An Equitable Trade"**

**By Ross7**

**Chapter One**

LA County Fire Station 51's A-Shift Captain, Hank Stanley, was seated on their rec' room's leather-covered sofa with their mascot's head and the morning paper resting in his lap.

His three-man engine crew was in the kitchen, putting the finishing touches on their lunch—their exceedingly late lunch, considering that it was already close to three in the afternoon.

The Captain's eyes riveted upon one of the paper's front-page headlines and his bottom jaw suddenly went slack. "California going up in smoke," he read aloud, and then glanced over at his guys. "I cannot believe that there are _still_ 400 separate fires burning in this state. It's been almost two months. Drought, or no drought, you'd think we would have made _some_ headway by now."

"Nope," Chet Kelly solemnly replied. "We're just holding our own, Cap. New fires keep springing up as fast as we can get the old ones out."

Hank frowned and reluctantly returned to his reading.

* * *

Less than a minute later, the two missing members of Station 51's A-Shift crew returned from their latest run.

Roy DeSoto killed their rescue squad's idling engine and he and his partner, John Gage, pried themselves out of the parked vehicle.

* * *

Hank heard the truck doors slam and glanced up in time to watch his sweat-drenched paramedics drag themselves into the dayroom.

"What's on the menu at Chez Stoker?" Roy lightly inquired.

"Tuna pasta salad," the engineer answered.

Marco stared at the blond paramedic in amazement. "Yah mean, you guys haven't eaten yet, either?"

"We went through the hospital cafeteria line—a _couple_ a' times, actually," Roy replied.

"Yeah," John ruefully joined in. "And both times, the alarm went off before we could make it to a table with our trays."

The engine crew shot the complaining pair some insincere looks of sympathy.

"Hey! We've been pretty busy, too, yah know," Chet informed the new arrivals. "While the two of you were cruising up and down the hospital's air-conditioned corridors, we were out there—in that oppressive heat and humidity—battling one blaze after another."

It was the paramedics' turn to give the engine crew faux looks of sympathy.

John removed a tall drinking glass from one of the cupboards and began filling it from the kitchen tap. "Seventeen more hours, and _I'm_ gonna be on my way to someplace cool and dry."

"Cool _and_ dry?" Lopez wistfully repeated. "I'd sure like to be someplace cool and dry."

"Me, too," Stoker admitted. "I haven't been cool and dry in months!" the engineer regrettably realized, and swiped the ever-present perspiration from his forehead.

"It would be nice," Kelly concurred, "to escape this heat and humidity for a few days."

"Not to mention all the brushfires and freaky electrical storms," DeSoto quickly contributed.

"You're all welcome to join me," Gage assured his shiftmates, once he'd downed the glass' cool contents. "That mountain cabin has plenty of bunks. You just gotta BYOSB."

"Bring your own sleeping bags," his partner translated, upon seeing the lost looks on their fellow firefighters' faces.

"Now, hold on a minute!" their Captain insincerely ordered. "You can't _all_ just take off and head for the hills. _Somebody_ has to stick around here and help me save California from going up in smoke," he lightly added and pointed to the article of 'gloom and doom'.

"Relax, Cap," Chet urged, sounding equally sarcastic. "When the whole state catches on fire, Roy claims that THEY say a big earthquake's gonna come along and put it out—by dropping it into the ocean."

His crewmates grinned and exchanged a group eye roll.

Hank heard Henry whine and his newspaper rattle and redirected his gaze to their no-longer-motionless mascot.

The dog dropped onto the floor and went trotting off into the kitchen.

All eyes in the rec' room watched, in bewilderment, as the still-whimpering pooch bypassed his food and water bowls—and the doorway to the alley.

The now howling hound chose, instead, to crawl under their kitchen table.

Gage set his drained water glass down on the counter and then bent over to address the strangely behaving Basset Hound. "What's the matter, kid?"

Almost as if in reply to the paramedic's question, a thunderous roar sounded from somewhere off in the distance. The loud rumbling sound increased steadily in volume and was instantly upon them.

The terrifying sound arrived with a jolt that rocked both the single-story brick building and its inhabitants. It felt like an eighteen-wheeler had just slammed into the side of their fire station.

Following the initial strong 'jolt', the floor beneath the firemen's feet began to 'shake rattle and roll'.

The window blinds began to bounce and sway and dishes started clattering in the cupboards.

Gage's water glass toppled off of the kitchen counter and shattered into a dozen different pieces.

The ceiling lights dimmed once or twice, but remained on.

Hank sat there in his 'rocking' chair and watched helplessly as his crew flailed their arms wildly about, in a desperate attempt to maintain their equilibrium.

It almost looked like they were surfing.

The side-to-side shaking motion continued for a full fifteen seconds and then quit—just as suddenly as it had begun.

"One thing for sure," Chet determined, following a gulp of relief, "Whoever THEY are, THEY have a _wicked_ sense of humor."

Their Captain shot up off his no-longer-rocking sofa cushion and went dashing into the kitchen. "Is everybody all right?…Sheesh! For a while, there, it sort a' looked like you were surfing," he confessed, following five reassuring nods.

"It sort a' felt like we were surfing," DeSoto had to admit.

"Must a' been a magnitude 5.0, or greater," Mike Stoker solemnly determined. "Wonder where the epicenter was?"

Gage grabbed a broom and a dustpan and started to sweep up the broken glass.

Kelly crouched down to their mascot's level and gave the droopy-eared dog a comforting pat on the head. "There lies Henry…the living seismograph."

Lopez stooped beside him. "I always said it would take an earthquake to get him to move."

His shiftmates snickered.

Their Captain pulled out a chair. "Quick! Let's eat! In a couple a' more minutes, the alarm is gonna go off. And it'll prob'ly keep going off—for the rest of the shift."

The famished firemen quickly—and obediently—assumed their seats at the kitchen table and began inhaling their slightly 'tossed' tuna pasta salad.

* * *

They'd managed to get one or two mouthfuls of shell macaroni, tuna, peas, onions and mayo down their hungry hatches when, just as the Captain had so direly predicted, their station's tones sounded.

The firemen shoveled one last forkful of food into their mouths. Then they shoved their chairs back and went trotting off, in the direction of their firetrucks.

"**Station 51…Assist Battalion 14 with an evacuation…1126 East Berkley Avenue…Cross-streets: 5****th**** and General…One-one-two-six East Berkley Avenue…Ambulances responding…Time out: 15:22.**"

"Station 51. KMG-365," Captain Stanley acknowledged and passed his paramedics their copy of the call address. He replaced the call station's mic', crossed the parking bay and climbed up into Big Red's cab. "Let's go, Michael!"

"Aye, aye, Cap!" Michael released the engine's air brake. Then he flicked its lights and siren on and followed Squad 51 out of their fire station and into the street.

**TBC**

**Author's note:**

_Found some fascinating info on earthquakes whilst surfing the web:_

"Ground shaking is a term used to describe the vibration of the ground during an earthquake. Ground shaking is caused by body waves and surface waves.

As a generalization, the severity of ground shaking increases as magnitude increases and decreases as distance from the causative fault increases.

Although the physics of seismic waves is complex, ground shaking can be explained in terms of body waves: compressional, or P waves, and shear, or S waves, and also as surface waves: Rayleigh and Love waves.

P waves propagate through the Earth with a speed of about 15,000 miles per hour and are the first waves to cause vibration of a building.

S waves arrive next and cause a structure to vibrate from side to side. They are the most damaging waves, because buildings are more easily damaged from horizontal motion than from vertical motion.

The P and S waves mainly cause high-frequency vibrations; whereas, Rayleigh waves and Love waves, which arrive last, mainly cause low-frequency vibrations.

Body and surface waves cause the ground, and consequently a building, to vibrate in a complex manner.

The objective of earthquake-resistant design is to construct a building so that it can withstand the ground shaking caused by body and surface waves." ***

*** Info gleaned from the internet.


End file.
